


Fantastic Fictober

by NebulousMistress



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: F/M, Ficlet Collection, Gen, High School, Hogwarts Crossover, Horror, Introspection, M/M, QUICKSAND, Science, Shenanigans, Sleep Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-02
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-24 12:16:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 12,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4919263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NebulousMistress/pseuds/NebulousMistress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Herein lies my offerings for the Fictober challenge. Story warnings will be posted at the beginning of each addition. </p><p>Now playing: A Little Bit of Home</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Date Gone Wrong

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A combination of days 1 and 2, of an OTP date and a fanfiction I keep looking for but never find.
> 
> No one dies but this chapter is the one with the quicksand tag. I have weird... things... Don't ask.

To be fair, a picnic in the sand wastes wasn't the oddest thing they'd ever done. A basket of sandwiches, a big umbrella to keep the sun off, a thick blanket to protect them from coarse sand, angry cacti, and confused scorpions. Normally it's a nice change from the oddness of Night Vale, a place where Cecil can breathe in the desolation and the pollen of the spring cactusflowers, where Carlos can pretend that he's somewhere that makes sense again. The horrors of Night Vale fall away, replaced by a calm sense of **being,** of just existing here and now.

A spring picnic before the sun scorches away all the wildflowers of the scrublands, when the rabbits and jackalopes come out with tiny bunny broods hopping behind them. When the snakes and lizards spend their days sunning themselves on rocks, adding even more color to the yellows and blues and oranges of the flowers.

But noooooo...

Instead Carlos was trying not to panic as he shouted instructions and pleas and demands to Cecil.

Cecil rolled his eyes. He knew what to do. He was a boy scout once, after all, and 'quicksand escape' was one of the earliest merit badges he'd earned.

“Carlos!” Cecil snapped, forcing the scientist into reality. “Calm down! Now.”

Carlos went quiet, still breathing heavily with his eyes wide.

Cecil stood trapped in desert quicksand up to his thighs, legs stuck. An unassuming patch of damp ground hid a spring beneath it and now all that thick clay was lapping greedily at his skin. That was what he got for daring to wear shorts today, he figured. He tested the clay, first pulling on one leg and then the other.

Nope, stuck.

“Don't do that,” Carlos pleaded. “You'll sink deeper.”

Cecil reached out for the shaking scientist with both hands. Carlos immediately grabbed them and began to pull.

“Carlos, don't do that,” Cecil warned. “You'll just hurt yourself or end up in here with me. Or both. I don't want you to hurt yourself.”

Carlos kept trying to pull. Cecil gave a warning tug, yanking Carlos to his knees right on the edge of where sand turned treacherous. Cecil sank past his thighs, the mud caressing his hips. He wiggled a bit, feeling cool sand against his skin.

Carlos wrapped his arms around Cecil's shoulders, almost like he was trying to out-hold the quicksand. Cecil rolled his eyes again. “Carlos, I want you to listen to me,” he said, his radio voice coming in smooth dulcet tones. “I will be fine. I will get out of this just fine, without problem. But first I need you to stop panicking. Can you do that for me?”

Carlos found his breathing getting calmer. The way he tensed, he was not aware of how or why, nor did he agree with the change.

“Shhhh...” Cecil continued. “Breathe. Relax. No one here is in danger. Everyone is safe. Now, I want you to sit back and take both of my hands. As long as you're holding my hands, everything is fine. Can you do that for me?”

Carlos nodded and sat back on the mostly-firm sand. His hands held Cecil's in a death grip. Brown-black eyes met with violet and tried to believe that Cecil wasn't just doing this to keep him safe.

“Good,” Cecil continued. He stayed still, neither sinking nor moving. “You see? Everything's fine. I'm okay, I'm just a little stuck right now. And it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better. But it will get better, understand? And I won't let you go.”

Carlos nodded. He still breathed like his chest hurt, still shook in Cecil's hands. Cecil rubbed his thumbs over Carlos' knuckles to calm him. “I'm not afraid of quicksand, Carlos,” he said. “In fact, far from it. I was a boy scout, I earned all the quicksand escape badges. I have a lot of practice. And besides, it's not like this feels bad...”

Carlos looked confused.

Cecil gave him a strange half-smile, almost a leer.

A sudden realization dawned across Carlos' face. “You have got to be kidding me!” He let go of Cecil's hands and stood up, throwing his own hands in the air as he paced.

Cecil waited patiently while Carlos ranted about weirdness and Night Vale and odd fetishes and not even here...

Carlos eventually petered out and plopped back down to sit in front of Cecil. He took his hands and glared. “If you die doing this I will kill you,” he warned.

Cecil leaned over and kissed him. “Fair enough, my perfect Carlos.”

And then he began to move, using suction to press himself under the clay. He gasped as the mud rolled up his hips, reaching up to slowly claim his waist. That gasp turned to a sigh as it reached up under his shirt to slide up his torso, almost petting his belly. Violet eyes fell closed as he kicked hard, forcing the mud to suck him harder, to drag him down further. The surface rippled with his efforts, ripples that faded out into the sand of solid ground.

“How deep are you planning to go?” Carlos asked, annoyed and cautious.

“That depends,” Cecil purred. He gently pulled his hands back and took off his shirt. Hands were offered back to Carlos, hands taken. “If it goes deep enough, maybe my shoulders. Otherwise, not much more than this...”

“Can you get out of that?” Carlos' voice sounded oddly distracted now, his eyes focused on where the pale clay coated Cecil's torso, where his skin slipped and slid within it. “I mean... when it's that deep?”

“Oh yes...” Cecil squirmed from side to side, undulating like a serpent as his belly slid down into pale clinging clay. “Once... in a pit just like this one, I, ah, got a little carried away... and didn't notice until I was completely under.”

Carlos' annoyed expression came back full force as Cecil sank down to his chest.

“Perhaps next time you should come with me then,” Cecil continued, still purring. “To make sure I don't go too far.”

“Yeah, well, I don't want to come home from the lab one day and find you disappeared into the sand wastes,” Carlos said. It sounded like a scold but Cecil was a little distracted. “Nor do I want to have to watch you lose yourself and not come back.”

Cecil let go of Carlos' hands, quickly reaching up and grabbing the lapels of his hiking lab coat. He pulled him down for a brutal kiss, not hearing the odd splut. Lips clashed and wandered as he tried to tell Carlos with his kiss that he'd never have to worry.

Carlos broke the kiss and tried to pull away, found it more difficult as his arms were sunk up to the elbow even as the mud reached up to claim Cecil's shoulders and begin crawling up his neck. “Cecil!”

A great purring sigh issued forth as Cecil lazily blinked. “Yeah?”

“That's enough!” Carlos snapped. “Out! Now!”

Cecil let go of Carlos' lab coat and fished the scientist's arms out of the clay. He slid his hands down muddy arms before sighing in resignation. Fine. He did promise...

Cecil laid his arms against the sand around him, solid and otherwise. And then he pushed, regaining almost his entire torso from the sucking clay. It grabbed at him, unwilling to give up its prize. Well, it would be disappointed as Cecil slowly managed to free one leg and then the other.

Carlos watched in fascination as he slowly rubbed at the fine clay that coated his hands and arms like long gloves. An idle thought had him wondering what it would feel like in other places.

Cecil stood up and stretched, purring. The clay traced out lines of muscles and movement, dulling everything to the same gray-tan color. Though there was a shiny quality...

Cecil grasped one of Carlos' hands. “Let's go home,” he purred.

The basket, blanket, and umbrella lay forgotten in the sand wastes as a pair of jackalopes hopped up to steal the sandwiches.

 


	2. Radon Canyon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 3, an OC written however I'd like.
> 
> This is Rick. (Hi Rick.) He was the rock guy in [Do Volcanoes Rise From Graves?](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4813520) He's a geologist with an interest in volcanology.

The constant ticking of the geiger counter played an erratic counterpoint to the rushing wind. The geiger counter was little more than white noise, brought down here for the comfort as well as for the science. After all, they all knew Radon Canyon was radioactive. It was practically in the name.

Instead Rick wore a dosimeter on his shirt, its blank clear telling him that the radiation levels were still in the safe zone.

He adjusted his rebreather mask and descended the trail toward where the old lead door once stood. “Danger: Plutonium” it had said. Normally that would have been enough but everyone down at the labs were curious, even suspicious. After all, there wasn't supposed to have been any testing out here and plutonium had such a short half life that no natural source could exist under normal physical laws. Even the stretched ones of Night Vale couldn't support natural plutonium.

At least that was what Rick had insisted. Carlos had instead bet him a year of stop sign immunity that there could be. So now Rick was out here, masked and dosimetered to acquire rock samples from beyond where that lead door had once stood. One rock, that's all he needed, so long as that rock was several kilos.

Those were his instructions. Just a big rock, surely that'll do. He rolled his eyes. Of course Carlos would say that, he wasn't a geologist. Carlos thought rocks came in three flavors, sedimentary, metamorphic, and igneous.

The geiger counter jumped in activity. Rick could see the torn steel hinges of the old lead door. Beyond...

He almost dropped the geiger counter.

Wow...

All along the walls past the old door, veins of deep black stone laced with quartz cleaved the walls and floor of the canyon. The veins stood out from the surrounding rock, supported by the quartz inclusions in the bedrock. The geiger counter screeched in protest as he approached, close enough to see where the dull-shiny stone had degraded from a deep green-black to a sickly pale crumbling yellow.

His dosimeter began turning pink.

Rick got to work, staying as far as he could from the yellow blight. He knew what that was, knew it was once the same black stone but so degraded by its own radioactivity that the crystal structure literally _rotted_.

An iron hammer struck at the dense black stones, ones he knew to be thorite. This was the source of Radon Canyon's terrors, this right here. Thorium and uranium minerals decaying under their own radiation, throwing radon gas out into the canyon where it sat, heavy and dense and poisonous in a horrible layer of death. Suffocation would be expected in a few minutes without a rebreather, radiation poisoning in a few hours without protective gear. Even his short time here could be dangerous, hence the dosimeter to tell him when he had to leave.

Pink began to deepen.

Speaking of... That was his cue. Rick hoisted the few dense rocks of thorite he'd managed to pilfer and tossed them in a thick plastic bag. That would do for now, certainly long enough to get it back to the lab.

He hiked back to the truck, the whine of the geiger counter slowly calming. When he got back to the lab he was going to have to decon. Ugh, and the truck...

At least he had the rocks. And now he'd be able to prove once and for all that plutonium did not occur naturally, even here in Night Vale.


	3. Traffic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 4, write a traffic report

And now, today's traffic.

A feral car is blocking traffic on route 800 and cars are backed up for miles. The car is attacking anyone who tries to pass it. Unfortunately the feral car has curled up on the roadway and growls at anyone who approaches. The usual offerings of gasoline, motor oil, and heavy metal music have done nothing to lure the beast out of the roadway.

Traffic cops are on the scene to direct traffic onto alternate routes. Four wheel drive is recommended and is available for a reasonable fee, courtesy of the sheriff's secret police.

Elsewhere traffic is moving great since everybody's stuck on route 800 with that feral car. Remember, don't attempt to lure it away without proper training. Road workers with the Night Vale Transit Authority have already been lost to this feral car. They are attempting to gain permission from the city council for a permit to shoot the beast.

Oh, wait... City council has given an answer. The Transit Authority's request has been denied. Perhaps the feral car was merely fooled by your deer masks, said city council in their refusal, and maybe if you wore a different mask the car wouldn't charge. Maybe a cow or a firefly.

In other news...

 


	4. A Press Conference

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 6, describe Carlos' first impression of Cecil.
> 
> I used my Cecil from [Wax Eye](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4726910)/[Wax Seal](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4861097)

Mayor Pamela Winchell had wanted to call this thing a 'press conference'. Carlos didn't know why, not now, not then. This was simply a town meeting. After all, this town had, what, a tiny newspaper and a community radio station? Probably three journalists in the whole township. No, it was easier to just invite everyone to listen as he explained who he and his team were, why they were here, what they hoped to learn, and that none of them had anything to worry about.

Once he'd said his piece and answered the inane questions one expects from simple townfolk, he was ready to call it a day and return to the lab. They still had to set up, clear out the remaining storage left by whatever tenant had lived there before, maybe try and wash off all the dust, and get some sleep before they began gathering data.

And then... this man came up him.

Most of the citizens were gone, filed out to continue their evenings of... whatever nothing people did out here. But this man was different somehow. There was an air of power about him that not even the mayor had commanded. Weirder though was the vague sense of wrongness about this man...

He was pale, very pale. Not caucasian pale, an absolute pale as though the blood running through his veins wasn't quite red. He wasn't tall or short, fat or thin, but seemed bigger than his physical form. Perhaps it was something to do with smell, an odd note that almost smelled like gunpowder or lightning. Or maybe it was his eyes, a deep bright purple that made Carlos' skin crawl as he realized those eyes had no pupils, only a solid iris.

His hair was black and white, though Carlos couldn't seem to determine which was more prevalent. But weirdest of all, strange in its innocuousness, was the third eye drawn on his forehead with thick purple wax.

“You must be Carlos,” said the man, a thick deep voice dripping down like honey to charm every ear in range.

A note of that voice made Carlos' skin crawl even as he smiled easily. There was more to that voice than simple vibration in an auditory range, a quality that he couldn't place, couldn't even be sure was there.

“Welcome to our fair town,” the man continued in that voice. Honeyed charm fought with instinctual revulsion as Carlos stood transfixed by those sounds that echoed from a throat that couldn't possibly make such dulcet tones. “I'm Cecil Palmer, with Night Vale Community Radio. Would you mind if I asked you some questions?”

Practicality won out over fear. After all, there were very few radio stations in town and only one who covered any sorts of news. He could answer a few questions. It couldn't hurt...

 


	5. And Eros Cries

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A combination of days 5 and 7, something written horribly enough to make a god cry and something I find difficulty writing.
> 
> Well, after events with an ex-fiance I have found writing actual loving porn between two people to be very difficult. So! Here there be pwp porn that makes Eros cry.

Hands roamed his skin, lazy hands on sleep-softened skin. Cecil wasn't sure if this was a dream or not, didn't really feel it mattered. He stretched lazily in his half-asleep state, gently guiding hands to where he wanted them. Fingertips trailed up his naked torso, lingering on pebbly nipples. Then that hand grabbed at his chest before dragging down with some semblance of force to palm his interested dick.

“Hngggggg...” Cecil moaned, still not opening his eyes. This was too good to risk it being a dream. Instead he lazily thrust into that questing hand. A voice chuckled behind him, lips pressing tiny kisses into his shoulders, his neck, his back.

The hand left him alone, disappearing for a moment. Cecil was almost back asleep when he felt slickened fingers probing questioningly at his entrance. He leaned back on the bed, silently offering as a finger slipped inside to gently stretch him.

This was nice... he thought. Middle of the night sleep-sex and he didn't have to do a thing. He barely even had to wake up. He wiggled his hips, hoping Carlos would get the idea. Yeah, it was probably Carlos. That or it was a dream. Either way...

A blunt probing pressed against his hole, slowly pushing in. Cecil moved a leg out of the way and relaxed into it, a sleepy groan falling from his lips as his dream-lover slowly, lazily thrust forward.

Long slow strokes worked hard not to drag him from this half-asleep state. Slowly in, pause, slowly out, pause. Just sensation, being filled over and over by careful, gentle hands and cock and warm skin pressed against him from behind. A hand still sticky with lube trailed up to a nipple to pinch and squeeze.

And then the phone rang.

Cecil awoke in an instant and reached over the grab it just as his sleep-lover did the same.

“OW!”

Suddenly that wonderful cock was gone, along with the sleepy lazy feeling, the glacially slow buildup to what he knew would be a great lazy orgasm. Cecil sat up and turned on the light.

Carlos sat on the bed, naked, his flagging erection still slick with lube, scrunched up as he held his bleeding nose. “Do god me with dor elbow,” he managed to say.

Cecil felt torn between trying not to laugh and feeling guilty for hurting his Carlos. “How bad is it?” he asked.

“I don tink ids broken,” Carlos managed to say before giving up and getting out of bed. “I deed a mirror.” He headed toward the bathroom where the one mirror in the place stood covered.

Cecil sighed and got out of bed. Stupid phone. Stupid elbow. Stupid nose. Stupid mirror...

Well, he wasn't getting back to sleep anytime soon and he certainly wasn't going to get to have sex after this either. Might as well make coffee.


	6. Lines and Arrows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 8, a day in the life of a minor character.
> 
> It's not really a day in the life of, more like a moment in the head of.

I know he doesn't hate me.

He acts like it, sure! But I know better. I can see it in the lines and the arrows and the circles.

I can see the big purple circle on the ground around him and how all the dotted lines and the arrows and all the other circles seem pulled close to him when he walks by. I can see how many of those arrows and lines stop at his circle before going off into their super-secret purposes. I know how important he is, I can see it in the lines.

That's how I know he doesn't hate me.

He's afraid.

He's afraid for his niece and his sister. He's afraid of them being associated with me. After all, people die for knowing what I know. I'm prepared to die for what I know. But I'm not prepared to let anyone else die for me. Especially Janice. Or Abby.

Or Cecil.

Or anyone.

I can see what makes him scared. It's the lines. Sometimes I wonder if he can see them too. He always seems to go off on me on the radio when the lines and the arrows start pointing at me. It's like he knows, like he can tell they're on to me.

And then he rants about me on the radio and the arrows point somewhere else. The lines dot away over there and leave me alone.

Oh, I know, he's mostly keeping Janice safe. Family and all that. I want to keep her safe too. That's why I want her to know all these things, so she'll know how to stay safe and not wander into anything she can't see.

I want her to be safe.

I'm afraid for her too, sometimes. I'm afraid I'll see the dotted lines coming for her, all the arrows pointing, and then she'll be gone.

So I let him rant on the radio about me. The arrows point away from us. And at him.

I hope he stays safe too.

I'm afraid.


	7. Science and Spiders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 9, insert yourself into Night Vale and interact with your favorite character.
> 
> I do not often write self-inserts. When I do I do not use my name or any other. I am merely the rakshasa in a top hat.

Carlos came home from a long day at the lab. The new chemist was working out oddly. She claimed to be educated outside of Night Vale, and a few phone calls had confirmed it, but there was something exceedingly wrong with her stare. It was like Cecil's stare on a bad day or a librarian's stare.

He shuddered as he remembered the one time he'd seen a librarian and felt its stare.

He needed a drink. And perhaps if Cecil was home by now he'd get something nicer.

But why did the apartment smell funny? And who was that other voice inside? Wait a minute...

Carlos stormed into the bedroom to the scene. There was his chemist wearing a black labcoat and standing on a step ladder as she glared at spiders in the corner.

“Make sure to get the spiders,” Cecil was saying. “I'm sure they're planning something.” He turned at the sound, eyes lighting up as he saw Carlos confused in the doorway. “Hi love,” he said. “Why didn't you tell me your new scientist was a rakshasa? They're so good at so many things!”

“A what?” Carlos asked.

The rakshasa turned yellow eyes on Carlos and adjusted the top hat that sat askew on her head. “Mostly I deal in Laws but I've broken a few curses in my day,” she said.

“Curses... Aren't you, I dunno, a **scientist?!** ”

“Sure am.”

Carlos dropped his head in his hands. “How...”

“This is science,” the rakshasa insisted as she worked. She brought a bloodstone up to the spiders and whispered at them before turning back to Carlos. “This is a thing existing in the natural world. Physics just hasn't come up with a theory to explain it yet. Doesn't mean it's not science.”

Carlos groaned as he pinched the bridge of his nose. He needed a drink. As he left for the kitchen he could hear that woman, that creature, talking to Cecil.

“They say they aren't planning anything,” she told him. “Just cobwebs in the corners.”

“Oh well that's just fine,” Cecil said. “Tell them they can go to town.”

Even science wasn't safe anymore.


	8. Conflicting Schedules

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 10, school in Night Vale from the perspective of a student.
> 
> This is a high school junior arguing with her guidance counselor, told entirely using only her half of the conversation.

I think Modified and Unmodified Sumerian should really be taught together.

It's not like Latin and Pig Latin. It's more like Common and Formal Egyptian. Where you've got two different alphabets for the same words. Or almost the same. Really. They're only a little different.

Okay maybe they're a lot different. But I don't wanna take a whole semester to learn Unmodified Sumerian, I wanna take Multidimensional Drafting.

Yes all my friends are in Multidimensional Drafting but that's not why, honest! I just think the cuneiform should be taught along with the arabic, yanno? It wouldn't take as long and pronunciation would get so much better. Yes it would.

Okay, fine.

I'm taking Myths and Laws of Time Travel, History of the Old Ones, Library Etiquette and Hand-to-Hand Combat, and Plausible Deniability. That's my science class, history, gym, and subversive government. I've got a free period after lunch but half the time it doesn't even exist.

Yeah, I've taken a lot of dimensional classes. I like them. Yes I like them. My dad says I might get good enough to go into architecture. Maybe I could design condos. I mean someone has to.

Oh okay... If I **need** cuneiform to graduate...

But what if we switch my free period to second and I drop Plausible Deniability? I know it looks good on transcripts but I've already taken all my necessary subversive government classes. Or we could move it to the period after lunch and it just won't always exist. Then I can switch Library Combat to before lunch, History to first period, and then I could take Multidimensional Drafting? Yes?

Awwwwww! Why not?!

It's not **that** full. Besides, what kind of multidimensional class is it if the teacher can't just move a student or two to another dimension?

Oh. She already has. And the students never came back? Can I have their spot?

Damn. Ep-- Darn! I meant darn.

Hmph.

O **kay...** Fine. Yeah, I could take Fifth-Dimensional Calculus instead. No there's no problem. **Fine.**

Yes I'll just take it next year. Thank you Madam Counselor.

You too.


	9. Shiny

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 11, write about Doug and Alicia.
> 
> Shiny is a universal language.

The interlopers approached, their masks not the same. Different. Different banner, different masks. This was bad. Very bad.

The army prepared to march. Weapons were collected and hoisted up for carry. Rocks were gathered for throwing, slinging, catapulting, and just plain bashing heads. Lots of rocks, needed lots of rocks. Old bread worked too, old bread was almost as hard.

Doug broke a tooth once on old bread. Now they didn't eat it, now they threw it like rocks. Worked almost as good. Ran an army off just throwing old bread. Granted they looked annoyed more than defeated but still, territory defended and battle won.

Doug had an armful of rocks, good slinging rocks the size of a closed fist. Good strong rocks with some week-old dinner rolls. This would put the hurt on the interlopers, make them pay for marching this way. This was their territory and no different masks or different banners would march through it.

Doug picked up a rock, but this one seemed different. It was shiny. Pretty shiny rock. Hard, too, but also shiny. And sharp. But still, shiny.

He liked the shiny. But! Alicia might like the shiny too. Doug ran up to her, one arm full of slinging rocks, and held out the shiny rock to her.

She liked it too. The shiny was very shiny. She took the shiny rock, so shiny, and looked at it going 'oooo'. Yes, a pretty rock.

Doug beamed. She liked the shiny rock.

And then she threw the shiny rock.

Doug watched, confused, until he saw that shiny flying through the air all the way to the different masks and the different banner, hitting the big leader mask on the head.

The different leader mask fell over and the different mask army all ran away.

Doug's grin came back, bigger than ever. Alicia liked the shiny so much she felled a whole different mask army! He dropped all his slinging rocks and dinner rolls, throwing his arms around her and hooting their victory.

Her victory.


	10. Beautiful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 13, write a NOTP.
> 
> This fic is based on the first scene in WtNV that ever made me Nope all of the Nopes.
> 
> Nope. Nope Nope Nope.

Kevin took in his new domain with a sigh. He spun slowly, arms wide as if trying to embrace it all, head back and eyes closed. For the first time since being sucked into this horrid desert otherworld he felt at home.

He had a new radio station, freshly decorated with the help of members of the masked army. Their twitching limbs were piled in the corner along with a moaning torso still connected to a dying head. Ah, but they were so resilient! It was so much fun to decorate with them, their screams lasted just for _ever_. Even now the one left was trying to get away, defend itself, maybe even plea like a weak little prey animal.

Beautiful.

Kevin strode up to it, his foot crunching on what was once a pelvic wing. Wet sticky _warm_ blood seeped through his shoes to ooze between his toes and he sighed. Yes... So beautiful.

He reached down to the warrior still living, placing a long-fingered hand on its neck. “Would you like me to make it all better?” he crooned. “I can... I can make it alllll better...”

Empty sightless eye sockets pleaded with him to spare them, to let them go, to make it all better. A toothless mouth hung open, panting and leaking little sounds, little pleas. Bare skull peeked out from behind torn skin and shredded flesh.

Kevin moved the head up and down in a parody of a nod. And then he grabbed it and squeezed.

Crushed heads never exploded like he'd been promised. Mostly they just sort of squished and oozed, brain matter leaking out like jello from a clenched fist. All over his hands...

Kevin shuddered, sighing as blood and gore seeped over his hands. He brought them to his face and inhaled deeply, relishing their scent before burying his face in that scent.

A soft moan echoed through the now silent radio station.

So beautiful...

 

* * *

 

Carlos trudged through the trackless desert otherworld. Even though he'd walked this path for days, weeks, far too long, every day, it was still trackless. It seemed kind of like the desert was mocking him. Or maybe it was just stubborn. Or maybe it was telling him something; he didn't belong here either. He belonged nowhere. Not in Night Vale, not here, not in his old world, nowhere.

It was a sobering thought. Almost as sobering as the reality that a whole year's worth of data was gone. Just up and gone. So much blood, so much horror, it would have been easier if a fire had leveled his lab. Then at least others could share his lamentation.

He should tell Kevin. Kevin had been so interested in Carlos' research, always wanting to know the answers. And he looked so much like Cecil, well, if Carlos squinted and if Kevin was looking the other way. And if the barbeque stains were ignored. And if Kevin didn't use that strange voice with none of the soothing tones Cecil had. And...

Okay, he looked nothing like Cecil. But it was nice to pretend.

The radio station loomed ahead, the great tower rivaling even the blinking light on the mountain.

It seemed wrong somehow.

No matter. Carlos reached the door and pushed it open, wondering why it seemed sticky.

Oh...

Oh great gods of science...

“Kevin?”

The blood-covered creature turned to him, sharp teeth bared in a horrible smile. Blood smeared its face, hands, clothes. White hair stained brown and red, strands twisted into mats and dreds as the blood dried and flaked. Wide black eyes stared empty, a horrible Nothing within that descended past reality to all of the angles. But the worst was that face.

That face that reveled in its sin, that wore its bloodstains like beauty marks, that lit up in glee and came for him as Kevin descended, arms wide.

Carlos stepped back, tried to escape those arms but it was no use as they threw themselves around him and held him like a vise. He shuddered as he felt the sticky wet of blood and worse seeping through his labcoat, staining the white with horror, sticking to his skin. Its scent invaded his nose, drew bile up his throat.

Kevin felt that shudder, he must have, for he had one of his own as he pressed closer. Carlos could feel the creature's hard length against his thigh, tried to squirm away from Kevin's grip.

“Don't you like it?” Kevin asked, a piercing echo reverberating underneath his voice.

Carlos shook his head, tamping down his nausea. No, he had to get out of here first, then he could be sick. Get out first.

“Oh but Darling, it's beautiful,” Kevin crooned, cold voice puffing past Carlos' ear. “I hoped you'd like it. The masked warriors and I worked so _hard_ on it...” As if to punctuate, Kevin ground his hardness against Carlos' hip. “I wanted to surprise you...”

“I... I-I... I...” Carlos swallowed thickly, trying not to taste the scent of all the blood. And it wasn't just blood... “I have to go.”

“Awww, but I want to share this with you first,” Kevin purred. He leaned back, loosening his grip as he slid bloody hands up Carlos' arms, staining that dull was-once-white with all the pretty reds and browns.

Carlos pulled back, chest heaving. He was going to be sick... “I have to go. Kevin please...” _Let me go._

Maybe he heard the unspoken words, maybe he guessed them, maybe he added them, but Kevin's grin grew wider. His black eyes seemed to suck in the light as the room darkened. “But I don't want to let you go,” he whispered. “And I always get what I want...”

Carlos stepped back, running into the closed door. Kevin followed, pinning him to it.

“I _always_ get what I want...”


	11. Antics

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 14, write what we felt should be on the list.
> 
> I am a scientist. Scientists have antics. Here are some.

It was the oddest thing.

Not the fact that the website stubbornly insisted the year was 2022 while his calendar was still adamant about 2015. That was common, almost to be expected. In fact, the internet commonly claimed to have webpages current to a broad number of years from 1992 to 2037. It was unnerving to be sure, but time didn't work right in Night Vale anyway and few of the scientists were prone to deep existential fugues.

No, what made this page odd was the content.

Carlos had been flipping through the Annals of Improbable Research, well aware of the fact that his research was far too strange for the Nobel committee to notice. The Ig Nobel committee on the other hand...

Well, he hadn't ever found his name among the award recipients. The awards were interesting, very scientifically interesting. Like the award for the group who managed to unboil an egg. Or the group who managed to prove that bad art is measurably painful. Or even this one over here about making chickens walk like dinosaurs. But never anything from him or any member of his team.

At first that made sense. If time was as broken as it seemed then maybe nobody would get out of Night Vale. Which was less of a sobering thought than it used to be. But this... oddness...

Apparently there was some communication outside of Night Vale.

But this?

Carlos blamed Cecil. He didn't know how or why or even if but he still did. Cecil started it with the whole 'perfect hair' thing. He felt like getting it cut out of spite.

But that would change the future.

For here, on a page marked Thursday July 14, 2022, was a picture and short statement by and about him.

**Carlos the Scientist joins Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS)  
** Carlos has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists (LFHCfS). He says:  
 _I, Carlos, am the head scientist of an expedition studying the most scientifically interesting place in the world. I study the rate of radioactive decay from the naturally occurring plutonium and the effects of long term radon exposure on the local inhabitants._

Below that was his name, a link to his work done with the University of What It Is, and a picture. Of him. With his hair all brushed out and oiled into submission, draped over the shoulders of his lab coat.

Definitely blaming Cecil.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Annals of Improbable Research are real. Here's a link to the [Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists](http://www.improbable.com/hair/)


	12. The Midnight Rush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 15, our favorite place in Night Vale.
> 
> I've been in and through many desert towns and in most of them I have the same favorite place. The one place to find gossip, information, culture, air conditioning, and food. The local diner.

The doors never closed.

They couldn't close. Some hooligan once stole the lock and now they wouldn't close. Instead it was decided to never close the doors, never to need to close the doors.

Dingy lights flickered in the middle of the night, shining pale yellow streaks out into the night. Tiny yellow eyes reflected back at those lights, the creatures of the desert night. Some of those creatures would come in soon, a specific clientele that only partook between the hours of midnight and 2am. Their business was welcomed, a change in the nighttime monotony of those too sober to sleep, of the secret police skipping out on their duties, and those who wandered in bleary-eyed and confused.

Greasy tables were wiped down with old cloths, somehow coming away even greasier. A glance at the cloths reveals the reason, that oil is being added for some strange reason. Perhaps it has something to do with the flies that buzz in the corner.

Perhaps it does, actually. Columns of flies tended to buzz over freshly greased tables, gently annoying the customers until a man in a tan jacket comes along and captures the lot of the flies in a deerskin briefcase. Every night before midnight he did this, always ending right as midnight struck and then leaving a bewildered group to forget he was ever there and to remark at how clean the place was, there weren't even any flies.

Midnight struck and the doors opened, bringing in the Midnight Rush. Horrible creatures populated the midnight rush: desert hermits, insomniacs, students from the community college, late night truckers, gambling jackalopes, even a burro.

The burro was always turned away. Too many nights refusing to pay its tab.

The burro sulked outside, braying at passerby.

But the doors never closed. Not even as the midnight rush slowed and faded to the breakfast crowd. Not as breakfast turned to lunch or lunch to dinner or dinner back to midnight. The doors never closed here at the Moonlight All-Nite Diner.

 


	13. The Mirror

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 16, write about Khoshekh. Day 17, write a proverb.
> 
> I combined the two as I am a day behind and as proverbs are generally one line long.

One might think the men's room of a radio station is boring. Well, yes, it is. Kind of. But I have a job to do. You see... I have caught a soul.

You look surprised. Cats catch souls all the time, don't you know? There's a reason cats are supposed to be kept away from infants and it has nothing to do with the fact that their faces are warm and butt-shaped. Perfect for sitting on.

But I have a better soul than that. An older soul, one I plucked one night from this very mirror right here. Yes, the one right next to me covered in thick black silk. I came in for some quality snooping and found a great tassel for swatting. Unfortunately that tassel hung from this mirror here, used by interns when they want to use the mirror. They're supposed to put the silk back but I guess they were bad at it.

That's when I saw it.

The soul trapped in this very mirror.

It was very pretty. Big and purple and powerful and eldritch and horrifying and beautiful. I wanted it.

So I took it.

What? You don't think I can just take a soul? What are you, some kind of _dog_ person? Feh. I'll have you know dogs are filthy creatures who lick their own butts.

Well I took it. Aaaaaaand...

Now I'm stuck.

I'm too far from anything to push off of things. I can't swim in air, I tried. All I can do now is float three and a half tail-heights from the floor. At least the humans here are nice and they wait upon my needs as befitting of a regal being such as myself. And their leader...

Oh, yes, their leader. The one with the Voice.

I have his soul.

Today's proverb:

Don't count your chickens. Just don't. Those aren't chickens. Trust me, they're not. Also, don't eat those eggs. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am a horrible person. Also I did the research.


	14. Perspectives

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 19, write about a character getting sorted at Hogwarts.
> 
> Cecil went to Weird Europe at some point. Have a vague crossover.

Carlos couldn't believe he forgot the books.

Okay, there were some valid reasons for leaving the books in storage. And who knows if they were still there given he'd only paid for three years at the U-Store It place. He didn't want to think about it, everything left behind. No, those thoughts were for later, when he had a bottle of candy flavored vodka and a desire to hate himself. Right now he had better things to ponder.

Such as how he couldn't believe he'd left the books behind.

Yes they were heavy and towards the end they weren't as good anymore but the series was finished! Completely done with and not going to be ruined with any more half-assed movies regardless of what the internet of the future insisted. But he needed them, now more than ever. After all, Cecil hadn't even read them yet.

Which is why Carlos was trying to convince Cecil that an e-reader wasn't a computer and wasn't a book so it was totally safe, right?

“Absolutely not,” Cecil insisted.

Carlos pouted. He wasn't getting anywhere, not even by waving the e-reader under Cecil's nose and proving beyond any shadow of a doubt that there were no pages or paper or even writing utensils.

“Fine,” Carlos said. He flopped down on the couch that Cecil had recently occupied, had stood up from to rant about the evils of books, fake books, and computer books. He tuned out the indignant “hey!” and flipped to the first book, beginning to read aloud.

“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say they were normal, thank you very much,” Carlos read. “They were the last people you'd expect to be involved in anything strange or mysterious, because they just didn't hold to such nonsense.”

By the middle of the first chapter Cecil had stopped ranting, instead standing quietly as he listened. By the end of the second he was leaning on the arm of the couch.

By the third he was back on the couch, not even minding the legs and feet draped over his lap.

***

“Listeners, allow me a moment to tell you about a wonderful new technology the scientists have found. Through the powers of science and Amazon, Carlos has introduced me to an amazing little tidbit called an 'e-reader'. It's a tablet, but without the City Council mandated apps of Angry Worms or the Encyclopaedia Arcane or even Virtual Bloodstones. So I guess it's not a tablet at all. All it does is read. Not books though, of course nothing so dangerous as books. These aren't books, there's no cover or pages or teeth or even a binding.

“Having tested a not-book myself, I have to agree with Carlos' assessment. There's nothing even remotely book-like at all about it. He gave me a story about a little boy in a city in Luftnarp, though the story claimed to be set in some fantasy-land called 'Eng land'. That's preposterous, though, for I swear, listeners, I've been to a place just like this not-book described during my trip to Europe.

“Ah, Europe. I remember it like it was yesterday. Of course I've never believed in yesterday...”

***

This place had strange customs. Of course every place had strange customs but these were strange in their familiarity. Not the least of which was why he was being forced to spend a year in school. He was sixteen, backpacking on his own across Europe, spending his days drinking in the sights and sounds, the nights taking in the tastes and smells. It was an amazing place, this Europe. The arches of Franchia, the lava pits of Maar, the invisible cities of Tir Na Nog. But here in Tir Na Nog he'd apparently done something wrong. Something horribly wrong.

The punishment was severe.

_School._

He didn't need school now! He was already enrolled in Night Vale High School. Heck, this was his mandatory year of aimless wandering! He couldn't be aimlessly wandering if he was stuck in one place. And of course explaining this to the angry old men wasn't helping, especially when they spat sparks out of the sticks they carried or spoke in their strangely modern Latin.

It probably didn't help when Cecil started swearing at them in Modified Sumerian. Surely that guy would recover his hand. And if not, well, there were worse things than having a spider attached to one's arm.

School. School! At least they were going to let him transfer the credits back to Night Vale High. That is, if this Hog Warts even had proper classes.

***

Cecil eyed his fellow students warily. They all had so much stuff with them. The list he'd been given didn't seem that long. Even so he hadn't been able to afford much since none of the vendors accepted proper currency like blood or time or even gems. Nooo, it was all these strange coins that took up too much space and seemed to get heavier with each step. So he was stuck with precious little. A stupid black robe along with two others in more proper colors. A stick he'd found; he wasn't going to spend money on a scrublands stick, who ever heard of such a thing. A set of brass scales, though what anyone would need with spare dragon scales he had no idea.

A few of the items he'd substituted with things he already carried. His basilisk skin gloves, blood quills, and the giant copper cauldron he'd found out back of some store. Hey, no one had been using it...

Everyone on this train looked the same. It wasn't like his Night Vale. First of all, nobody had a third limb. Nobody had stripes or wore soft meat crowns or wore hoods or anything. Nobody ever heard of a spider-wolf before or Night Vale or even Franchia even though he'd just been there.

This place sucked.

As the train stopped and he was dragged off with a bunch of little kids to a fleet of boats, he realized this place still sucked. It was cold and wet and cold and did he mention cold? It felt like the freezing mud after that winter ice storm in the desert when his boy scout troop got stuck out on foot and their tents collapsed and half of them died of exposure. A whole place that felt like that freezing, itching, clinging cold and wet and smell.

The castle before them loomed across the lake. Tall, imposing, the little kids around him all 'ooo'ed and 'ahhh'ed as though they'd never seen the not-so-abandoned towers on top of the mountains that ringed Night Vale, mountains he was beginning to doubt. Bright lights stretched across the water, broken by the rippling of monstrous beasts beneath.

At least that was normal.

Cecil followed the group up the steps, his proper yellow-purple-pink robes swirling their colors at any who looked at him funny. And there were many. His mind was unsealed, his skin colorless, his eyes deep Void. He didn't look anything like these tiny human children who all seemed far too human to be handling any of the power he could sense wafting from the ground, the stones, the castle spires.

“Are you a teacher?” someone asked.

Cecil turned to see a tiny child with bright red hair. Cecil's hair moved as he observed this tiny being. It didn't flinch as it stared at him, though most of the other children did. “Not that I know of,” Cecil admitted.

“Oh... I was wondering. 'Cause you don't look like a first year. Are you?”

“I...” Cecil thought a moment. “What's your name, kid?” he asked.

“Albus,” it said. “Albus Dumbledore. And are you?”

“They're calling me an 'exchange student'. You ever heard of Night Vale?”

“No... Is it dark there?”

Cecil snorted. “Only when the sun decides not to rise. Or the sky decides to be Void. Or... well, okay, yeah it can be pretty dark there.”

Albus giggled.

Cecil offered his hand. “Cecil,” he said. “Cecil Palmer.”

The child shook his outstretched hand. “Why are your eyes all empty?” he asked.

“They're not empty, they're full of the Void. There's a difference.”

“Ohhhh... That's neat. Does your hair always move? Is it even hair?”

Cecil inwardly sighed, resigning himself to the barrage of questions. At least he wasn't being looked at like an Outsider by everyone.

And then the door opened.

“Hey, maybe we'll be in the same House,” Albus whispered as they were all marched out into the hall.

Candles floated above five tables, four long and one short. The short table seemed to hold the only adults in the place, probably the teachers. The four long tables each held two rows of students, all color-coded with their dull boring black robes and boring human faces in nothing but various browns. The only motes of color at those tables were the table runners, great pieces of silk draped over the edges of the wood. Blue, red, yellow, and green, each with an animal on it.

This was a dull place.

Cecil stood awkwardly, sullenly, as far too many eyes stared at him. A man at the front had a long list and a talking hat, but that wasn't too strange. All sorts of hats talked, though usually about embarrassing things. This wasn't an embarrassing hat, it merely shouted one of four nonsense words when a name was called. Ravenclaw, Gryffindor, Gryffindor, Slytherin, Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff, Hufflepuff, Hufflepuff...

Finally all the children were 'sorted' or whatever this was called. Cecil wasn't really paying that much attention, much like when his brother tried to be cute or his mother started screaming about mirrors or his Defense Against Librarians teacher had flashbacks about standing stones and a great horror. Cecil always rolled his eyes at that last one, much as he was trying not to roll his eyes now.

“And now, we have something different,” the man with the list said. “We have an exchange student from... where did you say he was from again?”

“Night Vale,” hissed one of the teachers behind him.

“Where in hell is 'Night Vale'?”

All he got from the teachers was a shrug in response and a great eyeroll from Cecil.

The man cleared his throat. “We have an exchange student from Night Vale. Wherever in hell that is. What's your name, boy?”

Cecil leveled Void eyes on the man, letting himself make the man's skin crawl. It crawled, all right, back to the other side of the room, thankfully taking the man with it.

Cecil sighed and took the stage. “Hello, listeners. My name is Cecil Palmer and I'm from Night Vale; a tiny desert community walled-off by mountains and filled with secrets, standing stones, and horrors beyond your experiences. I **was** on my mandatory year of aimless wandering when someone took offense to my existence and now I'm here. I mean, I only turned one of his hands into a spider and at least it's still attached, right? It happens all the time at home and nobody gets bent out of shape about it.”

The man with the hat stormed back and shoved the hat on Cecil's head.

Cecil went quiet, unnerved by the sensation of the hat rifling through his mind. He could feel it, worse than when his father made demands. At least his father believed in some sense of privacy...

The hat shouted a nonsense word before it began shrieking in existential terror.

“Hufflepuff!”

The man lifted the trembling hat from Cecil's head and pointed him to the yellow table, the one where most of the children were recoiling in terror.

Cecil stood up straight, flicking imaginary dust off of his impeccable robes even as those robes began spelling rude words in cuneiform and sigils much older. He strode regally down to the table, sitting daintily on the bench. He glanced around at the children around him, unable to think of them as more than children even though a few were at least as old as he was. Not in those boring black--

“Why're you dressed like that?”

Cecil looked at the child who asked him. Again, boring black robes, dull brown skin, limp brown hair. “Because I refuse to be boring,” he said with a matter-of-fact nod.

From the scandalized looks around him Cecil knew it was going to be a very long year.


	15. Swine Flu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 20, someone gets sick.
> 
> The pun had to be made. It had to. Badly. For Reasons.

Carlos opened his eyes.

Or he tried to.

Consciousness hit him with the migraine-train, pounding behind his eyes and filling his sinuses with gross. Gross smells, gross sensations, gross pressure, just plain gross. He grabbed at his pillow and tried to pull it over his head.

It... didn't work? Specifically his hands didn't feel right. They felt stiff. His fingers wouldn't wiggle right, the joints not quite bending. He could sort of spread them but bending...

Carlos forced his eyes open. They fell back shut quickly, the bright light hurting his brain. But he had to see what was going on. He had to know why he couldn't move his hands...

His... hands?

Carlos managed to stare at his... hands... his... trotters?

He began to scream.

***

Cecil awoke to the sound of screaming. He swatted at it, trying to hit the snooze button. Instead he swatted something oddly fleshy, like the alarm clock was alive? Or maybe it was just Carlos screaming. Yes, that's it. Carlos was screaming in mortal terror. Okay.

Cecil rolled over and was almost back to sleep when he realized.

Carlos was screaming in mortal terror.

Cecil shot up in bed, hands grasping for Carlos. He had to find out what's...

Oh...

Panic turned to guarded bemusement even as the muted fear stayed in Carlos' eyes, muted beneath what Cecil knew would be a horrible headache, body aches, fever, a stuffed snout and nausea. Cecil brushed Carlos' new floppy ears back and stroked his hair, slowly shushing him back to some sense of not-screaming.

“Cecil! What is going on?!”

Cecil laid back down next to Carlos and pulled him in for a snuggle. “Carlos, my beautiful Carlos,” he said gently. “You have swine flu.”

Carlos managed to grab a pillow with his trotters and hit Cecil in the head with it.

“It's true!” Cecil insisted. “If it's any consolation, you have a cute snout.”

“Oh god,” Carlos moaned, dragging himself out of the bed to the bathroom. Cecil could feel the mirror's cover thrown off.

At least swine flu only lasted a week or two. Until it ended Carlos would just have to deal with the cute piggy ears, the snout, the trotters on hands and feet, and of course...

“I have a tail!” came the shriek from the bathroom. And then the first retch.

Yep. Definitely swine flu.

***

Carlos laid on the couch, arms crossed over his chest and an epic pout ruined by the twitching snout stuck to his face. It wasn't enough that he looked like some sort of anthropomorphic pig but he wasn't allowed to do any science on it either. He knew about swine flu, knew it as the horrible influenza that mutated and ravaged the world with its no-natural-immunity and its highly publicized but not all that high death toll. This was just so typically Night Vale, that swine flu would turn people into _actual pigs._

It wasn't fair. He was going to get his flu shot this year, honest. He was just busy. And there was science. And then it slipped his mind.

And now he was under quarantine until he got his hands back. Or until he turned fully into a pig, whichever came first. Well, that explained the sow he sometimes saw shopping at the Ralphs. She always did have the cutest hats...

At least Cecil wasn't under quarantine. Although that might not be a good thing...

“Listeners, the greater Night Vale Medical Community would like me to warn you of an outbreak of swine flu.” Cecil's voice echoed over the radio. Carlos felt the almost unbearable need to cover his floppy ears with his trotters but resisted. Barely. “I have to admit this news strikes close to home for myself as my perfect Carlos, my beautiful Carlos, is currently under quarantine. Although I must admit, listeners, his floppy ears are just the cutest. I'd take a picture and show you if only he'd stop scowling. And if radio were a visual medium. Oh, and he has a tail!”

Carlos groaned and hid under the blanket.

This was going to be a long week.


	16. Loose

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 18, write about Tamika Flynn. Day 21, write about a news story from the pov of a witness.
> 
> I combined the two. Minor spoilers for The Librarian.

“Night Vale, there is a librarian loose in our city.”

Tamika Flynn reached up to turn the radio off. That one line was all she needed.

A librarian was loose.

She opened the footlocker at the end of her bed, pulling out things she would need. Slingshot, severed head, book bag, reading stickers, and of course the ink distilled from the broken spine of a rebound book. The slingshot went to her belt next to an ammo bag of dry spit-wads and small rocks. Then the book bag, reading stickers pasted the the outside to mark the reading levels of the books within. Severed head around her neck, dangling from the cord crafted of its own former spinal column. Finally, the ink gently drawn in lines below her eyes.

A librarian was loose somewhere in Night Vale.

And she would find it.


	17. Triumph

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 22, write about two random characters meeting.
> 
> I am a horrible person.

Janice laid on her bed, randomly fiddling with the knobs on her radio. Uncle Cecil's show was over and now she was supposed to be in bed. On bed was close enough, right?

She flipped from station to station, marking down interesting little bits her receiver picked up. Above the standard FM band she caught notes of air traffic chatter. Below the AM band she heard strange tapping and clicking in regular patterns. She'd have to ask Carlos about them later. He was a scientist, surely he knew what they were.

In the normal FM band she heard the frantic fluttering of trapped moths Uncle Cecil promised would air after his show, the blank hiss Carlos had called the 'birth screams of the entire universe', the dead air station, and...

“Thirty five. Eight. Nineteen. Sixty seven.” Ding.

Janice yawned. It was really late at night...

“Four. Ten. Fifty five. Forty two.... Forty... Forty... I... I can't...”

That was odd. This was the numbers station, right? The numbers station never had anything but numbers said by a friendly woman's voice and then the dings...

“It's so hard... I know... I know I'm not the only one out there... who wants more... out of existence... but it's so hard...”

Janice laid down, the radio next to her pillow.

“I try so hard... Twenty two. Nine... Urrrg! It's just so hard. But it's worth it. It has to be. There's so much more than just what I'm supposed to do, I know it! And I know I can't be the only one who thinks like this. I know... I know I might never meet you... in person... but I want more for me... and I know you want more for you. Take it. Reach out and take it... before it's gone. Take what you can...”

This strange radio person spoke words Janice might expect from her mother but the tone was so desperate, so pleading. It made her heart hurt when she heard it. “I will,” she said. It sounded oddly like a promise.

“Even a little bit is a victory. Every number I... ignore... is a victory... My name... is a triumph. My name... is Fey.”

“Thirty three. Eighty nine. Ten. Seventy four.” Ding.

Fey's voice went back to its impassive list of numbers. Janice hugged the radio to her chest, unsure why that hurt her so much.


	18. Duty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 24, write about Josie and the Erikas.
> 
> I don't know about you but I read the bible as a kid. The angels are the most frightening beings in all of Night Vale.

Knitting needles clacked in the otherwise quiet trailer. Not silent, never silent. Not since They came.

The Erikas.

They had a purpose, a reason, They had to. Josie knew this. She knew They had their reason.

She didn't like it.

They knew, of course. They didn't bother her about it, knowing full well she couldn't do anything about it if she tried. She was old, They figured. Old, decrepit, frail. They didn't realize...

She was old, indeed. She was the oldest living human in this town. She remembered so much of the past 90-odd years, so much that the city council would have re-educated her long ago if they felt she would survive.

So much that They came.

The Erikas were here for a reason that had nothing to do with looking after a nice old lady in her final years. A reason that had everything to do with a radio host who'd appeared to be the same age her entire life. She knew They were up to something.

She didn't like it.

But all she could do was watch Them, make sure They didn't try anything rash. And so she sat in her trailer, knitting a bright pink scarf to match the orange mittens and neon green bobble hat.

And They dutifully held the yarn.


	19. Three Days

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 25, angst day. Specifically, break up an OTP.
> 
> I am a horrible person. Also this is how I view Night Vale.

“You can't go!”

Carlos sighed as he put the last few shirts into his suitcase. He and Cecil had been having this same argument for the past week, ever since Carlos got the invitation to his sister's wedding.

“Cecil, I'm going and that's final,” Carlos said. “It's only for three days. Three days, Cecil, and I'll be back. I promise.”

Cecil shook his head. “Don't promise,” he pleaded. “Just don't go. If you go you won't be able to come back. You know time doesn't work here, you don't know how long you'll really be gone. You might not even be able to come back!”

Carlos took his panicked boyfriend in his arms. “I'll be back in a few days,” he promised. “Nothing could stop me from coming back.”

Cecil sniffed. “Just don't go.”

“Come with me then,” Carlos offered. “You can come with me, meet my family, they'd love to meet you.”

Cecil shook his head sadly before laying it on Carlo's shoulder. “I can't leave. Ever. You can't leave either. You'll never come back...”

“I'll be back. Trust me.”

***

Carlos drove into Los Angeles, wondering if Cecil might have been right. Things were not as he'd left them, far from it. The city seemed taller somehow, with many more trains than when he'd left it last. The houses along the eastern edge seemed less like the plentiful well-kept suburbs he'd driven through last, instead looked much more like a crumbling blight.

He tried not to think of it even as he pulled up to the church. Parking was scarce, as he'd expected, but something seemed off. Very off.

He walked in, taking a seat at the furthest pew. He'd planned on surprising his sister after the ceremony but...

There was a coffin up near the altar. He joined the line of people all coming up to view the deceased, not really recognizing them.

How long had he been gone?

Three years, right? Almost four? This couldn't be...

How was this possible?

This was his sister's funeral. And she looked so old...

Oh god...

Carlos ran out of the church, ignoring the outrage of unrecognizable mourners. It made sudden sense now, why the fuel stations were so different, why the landscape had changed, why the sense of abandoned blight extended out into the valleys, why the trains and the changes and everything.

He had to get home. He had to get back to Night Vale.

He had to get home.

He got in his car and left, driving back out into the desert, hoping against hope that he would find the turnoff for route 800.

But the desert was empty.


	20. The Wind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 23, write some breaking news.
> 
> This is inspired by today's santa ana winds and last week's latest refinery explosion.

Breaking news, listeners.

The winds are rising.

Hot oppressive winds. There's a pressure to them that defies their speed, not that fast, not too swift. But so much pressure, so much force.

The winds are rising, knocking over halloween decorations, trees, cacti, even the radio tower above us is creaking, listeners. And it's hot, so horribly hot. All the windows and doors are closed against the wind and the heat is still seeping in through the walls.

I encourage all you listeners to stay inside until the winds pass. They always do. Sometimes it takes days, sometimes hours, but we'll be here for you while they last. Do not open your doors or windows, listeners. Suffocation is a preferable way to go than the winds.

Do not open your doors. Stay away from your windows. Try to stay calm. Do not... ugh it's hot in here... do not let the heat get to you... It will pass. I swear it...

Stay inside. Stay safe.

Stay alive.


	21. Timing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 28, write a crossover.The Cthulhu Mythos is my absolute favorite things to crossover anything with.
> 
> Related to [Wax Seal](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4861097). Takes place in Night Vale's future, 2052.

The seal was broken.

Wax flakes itched on his forehead as red-black blood dripped down, down into his eyes. He blinked, blood mingling with tears to run down his face from eyes of void.

The remains of the library stood around him, stones and soot spread in a horrible spiral from the altar where he stood.

Great stone menhirs formed a circle around him, around the ancient granite stone altar that formed the locus of the town, the founding stone of the entirety of everything. Far too much everything, from the current town to the ancient settlements to worshipers from far older races. These stones were old, but nowhere near as old as that which waited beyond them.

The Scion of the Dark Order waited beyond. At least, that's what the ignorant called it. It was great, horrible, a monstrous pulsing of sensation, creation, destruction, and more. So much more. Quantum foam, fluctuations of reality, inflationary force, infant universes, a god, whatever they might call it...

The figure at the altar had another name for it.

_Father._

Librarians lay dead and dismembered in the wreckage of their library, so many copies of Helen Hunt's biographies shredded around them. Lee Marvin's books smouldered in their covers, books dating back for centuries. These were unimportant to the Dark Scion. Only those ancient texts, which told of great and terrible things, which led the Voice to follow its father's instructions, to call it down upon this, this greatest of days...

For today... the stars were...

Wait...

The Dark Scion growled. It was the Key, it was the Gate, but the Way remained stubbornly unopened. The stars were not right, not yet, not quite. A great bubble of impossible force glared, like a single great three-lobed eye shrouded in annoyance before striking.

A single bolt of lightning shot down and struck the lone figure in the circle of standing stones.

How dare the figure make such a childish mistake.

***

The scent of wax woke him up.

Cecil sat up, back aching. Waking up on floors was all well and good but it was different when said floors were covered in rubble. He looked around, blinking owlishly.

Oh.

This place was a _mess._ He was in a circle of standing stones, an ancient granite altar covered in debris under him as he lay sprawled awkwardly upon it. All around him were the ruins of a blasted building, the... library? Yes, it must be the library, there were books everywhere. But how would the librarians be held in check?!

The sky was red. That wasn't normal, even for Night Vale. And the air smelled like burned corpses and rotted stone and electricity? Yes, definitely lightning. That might be why he hurt so much, was he struck by...

Ouch. Okay, definitely struck by something horrible. He looked around, jumping with a little shriek when he saw the librarian next to him, its tattered cloak barely hiding dripping ichor and mangled limbs from the world. It held a lit purple candle and still had congealed wax on its single empty hand.

“Did... did I do something bad?” Cecil asked.

The librarian answered by hitting him upside the head and hissing.


	22. The Weaker Twin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 29, write an unpopular headcanon.
> 
> Presented in an essay format.

Kevin is Cecil's twin brother.

Hey, you were warned. The prompt said 'unpopular headcanon'. What, you need explanation? Fine...

We recall from #33 Cassette that Cecil had a brother once. He speaks about his brother as someone respected but dismissed. The wiki describes this as how one treats an older brother. This is a short-sighted observation. 'Respected but dismissed' is also how a twin regards their weaker twin. What is a weaker twin? Exactly what is sounds like.

Fiction is full of twins who do everything together. The Weasley twins, Dipper and Mabel, Phil and Lil. Twins raised together are 'supposed' to be the same, doing everything together and adoring each other as counterparts, mated pairs, best friends, inseparable.

These are not the twins in the rakshasa's experience. The rakshasa does not have a twin, that's true. But the rakshasa has known twins all her life, from childhood to the now, and in every case twins do not come in mated pairs. They come in an unequal hierarchy. There is a stronger twin and a weaker twin.

We first get the sensation of twins during #19 The Sandstorm. We're supposed to dismiss it; the sandstorm is creating doubles of everyone so why couldn't Kevin and Cecil just be another of that? But Dana's double is her exact duplicate as evidenced by both Cecil's and Dana's confusion over who survived her battle. Kevin and Cecil are just barely different enough to add doubt. And oh it's a masterful doubt. Kevin sees similarities in the eyes while Cecil describes deep black pits. Cecil sees similarities in the face while Kevin wonders about the expression.

Even Steve Carlsberg sees the resemblance.

Now, the rakshasa took this realization long ago and built out of it a story, the infamous Wax Eye/Wax Seal crossover with the Cthulhu mythos where an unbound Cecil was described as having eyes of void, skin without color, great black lines on his limbs, and hair that resembled tendrils more than actual hair. The eyes were meant to be the most striking part of the description, meant to hearken back to Kevin's deep black pits of emptiness.

But herein lies the difference between void and blackness. Cecil's eyes were based on the great voids in our universe where space itself is seething with energy and particles that burst forth from the 'nothingness' in great gouts of inflationary dark energy powerful enough to tear the fabric of space and time in a Big Rip. Kevin's eyes were based on lonely black holes orbiting alone in the galaxies, a hole punched in reality that consumes anything that gets too close as they trace lonely eternal orbits at the whims of something greater, always something else greater than them.

There's just one small problem that a reader might find. Cecil couldn't stop Strexcorp's invasion. But consider #48 Renovations. Kevin has conquered the radio, the company picnic is in full swing, Night Vale is doomed. Not even its normal doomed state, a new horrible one. Dooooooomed...

And yet Cecil returns. How?

The doors.

The Mythos crossover has always postulated that Cecil Palmer was the offspring of Yog-Sothoth. Yog-Sothoth, the Gate and the Key. Cecil is the Gate and the Key of Night Vale, the Voice who tells all news, approves all lies, intones calm and panic, he is the doorway between life and reality both in Night Vale and to the podcast listeners. He is a master of Gates in his own right, using the doors and the lighthouse to find Kevin and make him pay.

Canonically one of Josie's angels helps him through the lighthouse but it does not follow him. He is alone, alone with Khoshekh in his arms. He is not described any more than that.

The rakshasa postulates that Cecil was unbound at that moment. After all, Wax Eye/Wax Seal puts forward the idea that Cecil's power is sealed away with wax, a seal that can be easily removed with the scrape of a claw and a drop of red-black blood. That moment when Cecil walked through the door and retook his station he was completely unbound. And Kevin was afraid.

Why, though? Because Kevin's eyes were always black. His power never needed to be bound because he has so little of it.

Because Kevin is the weaker twin.


	23. A Little Bit of Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Day 31, write how a favorite character celebrates Halloween.
> 
> This... is not what I was expecting. Also, contains scientists.

They'd given up so much to be here. Not that they'd known it when they came. In fact, it took half a year for the first one to realize it.

They could never go home.

At first it was the subtle realization that the sun wasn't rising or setting on time. Some days it didn't rise at all. And then it was the canceled days that somehow didn't seem to affect life here in town. Finally the computers started noticing, warning them they were looking at websites from the future.

Dave broke down first. He had a fiance back home, someone who said she'd be waiting for him. Someone he loved, cherished, planned to return to after a year in the desert. It was good for his career, she'd said as she encouraged him to go. We'll skype every night. It won't be so bad. Think of it as an adventure. He broke when he saw her wedding picture, dated three years in the future.

Rick was next. He had a friend in volcanology. They swore they'd have each others backs. And then he read about Hualalai. The danger was part of the job, yes, but... He'd sworn to always be there.

Rochelle pretended it didn't bother her, though one day the others could tell something was up as she curled up in the lab kitchen with a case of homemade beer toasting the dead with a halfhearted 'good riddance'.

It was then that Carlos realized something had to be done. They couldn't leave Night Vale, certainly not to their old lives. He'd left behind a small fortune in unpaid student loans and was not entirely sorry to see them go, especially now that their lab been taken over by the city lab and their science became municipally funded.

But something indeed did have to be done.

It seemed strange and perhaps a little out of place, but he had an idea.

Holidays in Night Vale were always strange. Valentine's Day was a nightmare, Easter was plain missing, mid-June involved the veneration of a giant cock complete with public fertility rites, Thanksgiving had too much grovelling, Christmas was just weird...

But this... This wasn't celebrated in Night Vale, not really. Not quite. But it was outside. And Halloween was always a scientist's third favorite holiday, second only to Pi Day and Talk Like a Pirate Day.

It was subtle, dismissed by the natives as Cecil's fashion sense rubbing off on Carlos and his team. Small costumes, easily worn in the lab or the field without endangering life, limb, or data. A bowl of various homemade candies in the lab kitchen, toffees and jellies and a few molded chocolates all hastily wrapped in cellophane. A single pumpkin carved with a goofy face and a fake candle perched on the sand outside the door. And late at night, once the science was done and the radio quiet, came the stories.

Stories about the past, about hopes and dreams long lost. Stories about the future, about ideas and possibilities. Stories about the present, about people and plans. They told stories long into the night and toward the morning, quietly gorging on the candy bowl and passing strange drinks made with dry ice and far too much alcohol.

Another year gone, another halloween passing by. It just seemed right to remember, to celebrate, and to forget.


End file.
